In the orthopaedic back brace or support field, numerous back support designs have been developed to provide support and minimize movement of a patient's back and neck after sustaining injuries of varying severity. U.S. Pat. No. 4,622,957, for example, discloses a therapeutic corset brace, having inflatable cells therein, which exerts a supporting force against the lower back region when properly secured. Such a brace is subject to positional shifting if not properly secured about the torso. Further, the inflatable bladders are subject to loss of air pressure resulting in a reduction of force necessary to adequately support and immobilize the injured or weakened back and/or neck. Moreover, the inflatable bladders are capable of providing only a moderate degree of customized fit; the fit being dependent upon the orientation and number of inflatable bladders.
Other back support designs, similar to that disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,062,414, employ a gel-like substance contained in a flexible pouch which can be inserted into a conventional corset-like back support. The gel pad is capable of generally conforming to the shape of the lower back and spinal region, and is held in place by inflatable bladders located behind the gel pad. Upon inflation, the air bladders, in combination with the gel pad, provide only a moderate degree of custom fit.
Back supports employing high viscosity gel pads as support members inherently lack sufficient rigidity to adequately regulate and minimize back movement. These limitations result in a back support system which suffers from undesirable variations of supporting force depending on the temperature and orientation of the gel-like pads.
More conventional designs employ foam padding in combination with flexible elastic belting material strapped around the torso to minimize back movement. These traditional approaches fail to provide a sufficient degree of customized fit needed to properly minimize and regulate back and/or neck movement.
Accordingly, a principal objective of the present invention is to provide an orthopaedic custom "in situ" formable back support suitable for back and/or neck injuries of varying degrees, which is lightweight, truly and uniquely formable to a patient's torso, and is easily fitted and removed. Additional objectives are to provide a custom formable back support which is simpler to fabricate and may be custom formed "in situ" in a short period of time, as compared to conventional approaches such as those described hereinabove. In accomplishing these objectives, the invention will increase the stability of the weakened or injured back and/or neck, and ensure the prevention of undesirable movements which could further injure the back and/or neck or complicate the healing process.